2 Things from Chapter 8

I learned a lot when reading about claims and their contradictories in chapter 8.  I found very useful the chart on page 162 about claim words and the contradictory of each.  Epstein explains that there are so many ways that people make claims it is hard to give a set formula for the contradictories.  Some of the guides in the chart include:

Claim: All…

Contradictory: Some are not…

                        Not every…

Claim: Some…

Contradictory: No…

                        All are not…

                        Not even one…

An example of a claim: Some dogs are nice.

Two contradictories:  All dogs are not nice. Or: Not even one dog is nice.

The contradictory of the claim is the opposite.  These contradictions are like what we have learned in previous chapters, but here they use specific words like all, some, some are not, no, and only S are P.

            Another thing that I learned was reasoning in a chain with almost all.  Epstein explains, “Reasoning in a chain with “almost all” is usually weak” (pg. 172).  An example of using almost all: Almost all cats like fish.  Almost all things that like fish don’t meow.  So almost all cats don’t meow.  This example relates to the one in the book but gives a different idea for the reader.  The conclusion in this example is false, which makes it very weak.

Conditional Claim

I thought there was a lot of information to take in from Chapter Six so I decided to do Conditional Claims.  In the text a conditional claim is defined as, “A claim is conditional if it can be rewritten as an “if…then…” claim that must have the same truth value” (pg. 121).  Conditional claims are often “If A, then B.”  A would be the antecedent and B would be the consequent.  An example of a condition claim:

If there is a lot of traffic, then I will be late for class.

The antecedent is “If there is a lot of traffic” and the consequent is “then I will be late for class.”  In a conditional claim the consequent depends on the statement of the antecedent.  People use conditional claims on a daily basis.  Almost everything we do is dependent upon something else and that is why conditional claims are used so often.

Raising Objections

I chose raising objections because I thought it was fairly interesting.  We reason on a daily basis through arguments, counterarguments, and counter-counterarguments.  As Epstein explained in the text, “raising objections is a good way to show that an argument is bad” (pg. 147).  When we raise objections we are making another argument (which is the counterargument) that calls the premises into question or shows why the argument is weak.  If someone puts forward a counterargument that is true it makes one of the claims of the argument false or not believable.  We then have to answer that claim in order to prove our argument true.  When you include counterarguments in your argument it makes your argument seem stronger and more valid because you are not ignoring objections.  When you include these objections it helps you to see where to give more support for a premise that one may see as doubtful.  I learned this technique a few years ago and have used it in my arguments and papers.

Contradictory of a Claim

I found the Contradictory of a Claim section very interesting in Chapter six.  The definition that Epstein gives is, “One that has the opposite truth-value in all possible circumstances.  Sometimes this can be called the negation of a claim” (pg. 114).  I thought that the examples in the book were very simple but obvious.  After reading this section it really brought to my attention all of the contradictions that people use in claims on a daily basis.  An example of a contradictory claim is:

Claim: I will get a bad grade in this class.

Contradictory: I will get a good grade in this class.

This is an example because the Contradictory is the complete opposite of the claim.  A claim is only true if its Contradictory is proven false.  In this case the claim is false because the Contradictory is true. I AM going to get a good grade in this class! J

Criteria for Accepting or Rejecting Claims

I thought that Criteria for Accepting or Rejecting Claims was very helpful and useful to me.  I never knew that our most reliable source of information about the world was our own personal experience.  This is the section I found most interesting.  I often thought this myself but I never knew that it was really a valid claim to make.  The idea behind this is that all we know is one hundred percent true is our own experience.  We base our whole lives around our experiences.  This is how our opinions are made.  As it was stated in the text, “We accept a claim if we know it is true from our own experience and we reject a claim if we know it is false from our own experience.”  The problems with this are that we often do not remember what we actually experienced and only take away what we deducted from the experience.  This often involves a lot of inferring.

Advertising and the Internet

 Advertising has become extremely popular over the internet the past few years.  The media has found that the internet is such a popular place and they can get an extreme amount of customers by advertising their products and convincing people that their product or service “works for everyone.”  Epstein states, “Many advertisements are arguments, with the (often unstated) conclusion that you should buy the product or use the service” (pg. 94).  A popular advertisement for a product that I see online is Jenny Craig.  They claim that “if it worked for me, it will work for you.”  As some people know not every weight loss program works for everyone.  It is not to say that it will not work, but it is not true that since it worked for them it will work for you.  Many people fall into this trap believing this particular statement.  Just as Epstein explained, it may be accurate that the product works, but it may not be for everyone.  It is amazing how many advertisements are thrown at us on a daily basis through media.  Shows how much more careful people need to be when determining the accuracy of an advertisement for a product or service.